


Prick

by PoppyAlexander



Series: Johnlock ficlets [11]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Caretaker John, Caretaking, John is a Very Good Doctor, M/M, Needle fetish, Piercing Fetish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-05-05 10:07:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5371328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoppyAlexander/pseuds/PoppyAlexander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There's always something. Something I miss."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prick

" _There's always something. Something I miss._ "

He doesn't miss the people he knew; he barely knew them, even the ones he knew quite intimately, in the shadows of doorways and alleys, out of the range of CCTV. He doesn't miss the nights that went on for days, wondering why the sun was out, when the clubs had closed, where he got that bruise, this baggie full of pink pills, that cut on his thigh that should probably have been sutured. He doesn't even miss the euphoric rush or the dopey, sludgey aftermath, mind as quiet as a tomb, face numb, aching bones oozing into syrup inside his skin.

Sherlock misses the  _needles_.

That hyperfocused starburst of pain, like a pinpoint of hot white light as the tip of a hypodermic pierced through layer after layer after layer of skin, and he swore he felt it poke open the hole in his vein. Instant relief, a place to settle-- _just there_ \--in that micro-explosion of bright agony. Just there.

It took John a ridiculously long time to catch on, that the discarded straight pins from freshly laundered shirts were not merely  _left lying about the place_. That there were rather more sewing needles in the flat than strictly necessary given neither of them was a tailor. That very few men kept a well-stocked pin cushion in the night table drawer beside the soft-cornered magazines, old love letters, broken Rolex, and various containers printed with names like  _EZ Luvr_  and  _Yesss_.

It wasn't until Sherlock was confronted by a man half-mad with worry, half-furious with disappointment, bearing a plastic blister-pack of six sterile hypodermic needles that the explanation for the constant, inconvenient--frankly a bit  _weird_ \--presence of sharp-tipped implements in their lives was made clear.

Doctor Watson took charge of it from that moment forward: stocked the bedside drawer with alcohol swabs in square foil packets, snapped on vinyl gloves, searched Sherlock's eyes with his own for signs of--what?--weakness? self-loathing? Sherlock wasn't sure. He decided to let it be nice of John to care so much.

It was a game of diminishing returns--the first stick always the sharpest, the cleanest, singing out a high, sharp note in the corner of Sherlock's brain that grabbed his full attention for that one shining quarter-second. Each successive one brought less pleasure, demanded less of his attention, until the rush of protesting blood made his skin pink and hot and all-but-numb against the miniscule perforations. When he didn't feel them anymore, they were finished, and John wiped the pins or needles or thumbtacks or pen nibs clean with his little packets of alcohol-soaked gauze and put them aside where they were unlikely to end up on the floor to be discovered later by tender, bare heels.

They didn't bleed much, most of them--it depended where he needed it--and even when they did, it wasn't about the blood. By the time the blood was running he'd already gotten what he wanted from it. He let John bandage him with plasters, let John narrow his studious, doctor's eyes in his serious, lover's face, let John tsk and croon and kiss him, creating new rituals to mark out his own, sloppy, old rituals in parentheses that reassured John that, no, he wasn't on the slide toward a relapse, and no, he wasn't a self-harmer, not in the usual sense. John hated it, but once it came to light, he would never have not been part of it. He would never have left Sherlock alone with it.

John would pat the plaster flat against the little, straight row of punctures with his fingertips--they fit beneath that one-inch-square of gauze, John always placed them close together--and quietly say, "All right?" as he peeled off the gloves and binned them. And Sherlock would nod and smile, his head a muzzy dream of its usual, jittering jangle, and John would kiss him, just a bit, and lay hands on him--his chest or shoulder or cheek--and try hard not to shake his head. John hated it. Of course he hated it. But he tried to understand.


End file.
